Somewhere along the way, I lost interest in making ice cream. I didn’t lose interest in ice cream, just making it. So if I were to have a dinner party, I might make brownies and hot fudge sauce for brownie sundaes (as I did for an upcoming episode of The Clean Plate Club), but I’d buy the ice cream at the store and that was that. I was happy. I’d been there and done that with ice cream. But then a cookbook showed up from one of my favorite restaurants in all of New York (maybe in all the land), Franny’s, and there at the back was a recipe for one of the best ice cream/gelato concoctions I’ve ever tasted: their toasted almond gelato.
When I heard that Doug and Bryan of The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck and The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop were making a Thin Mint Milkshake, a part of me thought: “Whoah, I wonder how they make that?” I also thought: “I wish I lived in New York still so I could taste that.”
Then, the other day, after Craig and I took a hike in Bronson Canyon, we stopped into Gelson’s (our local grocery store) to pick up a few things and encountered a Girl Scout standing outside.
Good people, I have returned to the land of the living. As I stated in today’s newsletter (my first since August (subscribe here)), half of my cookbook was due this past Friday and I turned it in with a great sense of accomplishment and relief. Now I have some time to breath while my editor reads it over. And that means more blogging, more newsletter writing, and more time to spend with a certain someone I’ve been ignoring too much lately: (said in a Hallmarky, dramatic voice) me.
“What do we need that for?” asked my grandmother, and she had a good point.
You see my whole family, well most of my family–mom, dad, grandma, grandpa–came to see my Brooklyn apartment on Friday, and after a lovely lunch at Miriam (where we shared hummus and I ate an Israeli breakfast), I led my parents and grandparents across the street to The Chocolate Room. It was there that we ordered a brownie sundae and my grandmother protested. “It’s too much food,” she said, shaking her head disapprovingly.
And then it came. The waitress set it down and suddenly my grandmother was transformed; she lifted a spoon with profound determination and dove in with all her might. My whole family attacked at once and the dessert before us vanished in 0.33343 seconds. This proves something I’ve suspected for a long time: nobody can resist a brownie sundae.
Hi everyone, my name is Toasted Almonds. You might not think much of me–I know nuts aren’t the most beloved of foods, and toasting? It sounds like a waste of time, right?–but I’m here to convince you that I’m a worthy addition to your cooking repertoire.
My brother, Plain Almonds, is a nice guy and all, but between you and me? He’s a little boring. For example, he underlines words that he doesn’t know when he reads, then he makes flash cards and studies them later. That’s Plain Almonds for ya. But me? I’m a wild man. When I read, I doodle inappropriate pictures in the margins of the book. Like last week I drew pictures of toasted, skinless hazelnuts in the margins of “Crime & Punishment” and Plain Almonds got so mad! He told me I was trail mix the next time I tried a stunt like that.
First things first: as David Lebovitz gets lauded for his masterful new ice cream cookbook The Perfect Scoop, it’s important to note that but for the recipe on page 73, this book would be considered an abomination. That recipe–for Sour Cherry Frozen Yogurt–lends the book an authority and sophistication that it would otherwise lack. And sure, it just so happens that the recipe is by yours truly and that David gives me credit in the recipe’s introduction (he calls me “a nice Jewish boy”), but objectively speaking that recipe makes the book. That recipe and this one for watermelon sorbetto.
Ok, and all the others too. This book is incredible. As you may recall, the frozen canister component of my ice cream maker went missing, so I went to Williams Sonoma and used part of a gift certificate to get another. They don’t sell that component separate, so I had to buy a whole new ice cream maker, but for $60 it came with TWO frozen canisters: quite a bargain! (And the best $60 you can spend to ensure a happy summer.) [Actually, you can get one with one canister on Amazon right now for only $50: click here!]
When I got home, I cleaned the canisters thoroughly and popped them into the freezer. The next day, I came home from a hot afternoon parched and craving icy refreshment. Could I use David’s book to sate my craving? How long would it take? What could I make fast?
We food bloggers are creating quite the online ouvre. While some of us are leaving behind breast cupcakes, the rest are leaving behind fabulous recipes. Case in point: Clotilde’s Blueberry Yogurt Cake:
And David’s frozen yogurt recipe which I applied to a recently acquired tub of sour cherries making Sour Cherry Frozen Yogurt:
The primary ingredients for both these recipes came from–yup, you guessed it–the farmer’s market. The blueberries and sour cherries I bought from the same stand. I was really only going to buy blueberries but when the woman there mentioned sour cherries I remembered reading an article that said: “If you see sour cherries at the market, snatch them up. You can put them in the freezer and use them after sour cherry season is over.” So I reluctantly requested the cherries too and I went home with two fruits, unsure of what I would do.
The answer came by way of the third ingredient, an ingredient I acquired two weeks earlier at the Ronnybrook Dairy stand. Yup: yogurt. (Cue Mel Brooks: “Ya hoid of me?”) I knew yogurt would last a long time in my fridge and I figured I could concoct something to do with it–maybe eat it with berries and honey or use it to coat my cat after setting her on fire. I figured yogurt was a good thing to have so I bought it. And I forgot about it. Until the blueberries and the cherries came along.
]
